The Harbinger that Arrives before Dawn
by scorpiris
Summary: Hephaestion slept and dreamt. Now that he's awake, what should he do with it? AU. Standard disclaimer applies.


The Harbinger that Arrives before Dawn  
><em>Soldiers. They are a superstitious lot anyway. Nightmares and premonitions. When you dream things, who do you sacrifice to? When you dream things, what will you do?<br>_Warning: AU, Incoherent, unbeta-ed mess

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><p>It was as though he was trying to see through a cloud of murk and mire; as though he was trying to listen under a thick slow-moving stream of water. He tried to speak, but it felt as though he was choking, as though water had gone inside his nose, mouth, and throat. And he knew firsthand how difficult it was to speak when one was fighting not to drown.<p>

There were people, like they were screaming in the distance. He felt his hands clamped around someone, he felt someone pushing him and pulling him and yelling. Times seemed to pass by quickly, and he had a feeling of dread that he might be running out of time. The pushing and pulling never stopped, his hands tightened around someone's forearm, trying to pull someone away, now more jerkily, now with more urgency.

His eyes began to clear, like eyes finally adjusting to darkness from light, or to light when one emerged out from the dark. He blinked, chasing the pain that seemed to lodge itself behind his eyes. First he saw black shadows, people and more people and even more. Then pillars, then chairs and a room came into focus. Remnants of a feast of some sort, he knew not, but they had been feasting too much and sobering only a little. They were murky brown and sickly grey, and a tinge reminiscent of diluted blood seemed to be a constant veil in front of his eyes.

Now noises. Muffled and so far away. Angry bursts and huffs, heat rising. First there were mouths, twisted in anger. Then faces, turned and warped as though moulded by the Furies own. Angry words spilled into the air, falling, surging, pushing, pulling. Then people, more people, blazing bright, some tightly coiled madness, others seemed to be lashing, careless outrage. And above them all, the bright scorching wrath he knew so well.

"Alexander!" he yelled, as best he could though futile all the same, through the murk that bound his tongue and impeded his throat. The forearm he was holding onto was Alexander's. The mountain of muscle he was trying to hold back was Alexander. The anger that was burning him alive radiated from Alexander. Those deaf ears upon which his smothered pleading fell were Alexander's.

First Alexander. Then all the others, he could probably recognise one and two and three, their shadows as familiar to him for they were his friends, comrades, and even enemies. They were faceless familiar people, chanting, yelling, jostling. Until one surged out from the cloudy shadows, face bright-hot with anger, fury, and a mouth spewing hatred and taunts. _Kleitos!_ And for a moment, less than a heartbeat's span, his surprise had him paralyzed.

And he knew then, informed by the instincts he was born with and honed in many of Alexander's battles within and without. His nerves sung and his desperation grew a thousandfold, renewing his hold upon Alexander, renewing his vigilance upon what little he could see. Not much. Not nearly enough. From behind him a lance appeared, gleaming like an ominous omen. He saw Alexander's fingers wrapped around slender wood. Saw and knew and surged forward helplessly. Yelled and denied helplessly. Saw blood, saw death. Felt it suffocate.

_No... Father Zeus... oh what have you done, what have I..._

It felt as though he was falling, and for some foolish reason he opened his eyes, perhaps this way he could embrace the horrors he saw and...

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><p>It is bright instead, the air is light and fresh as mornings are. Alexander is now a large welcome shadow above him, brows knitted in worry, eyes shining with concern. "It was as if you were dying in your dreams," words in those beloved voice, spoken and heard clearly like a bell in summer breeze. No murk, no swamp, none of his horrors. "I could not wake you up."<p>

"I..." Hephaestion looks around, confused, lost. There are none of the suffocating darkness crisp white light filtering from the morning sun outside. He spies clear blue skies through the cracks, he sees none of the madness and wrath in Alexander's eyes. "Must be the wine..." he tries to smile, but instead he feels only fatigue. He fights and strains against complaining muscles and racing heart, rising with much difficulty.

"You might be ill instead," Alexander pushes him back gently. "Do you need the physician? I should get them to look at you."

"No, really... I..." words fail him as a soothing hand presses lightly upon his clammy forehead. He leans into it almost instinctively.

"Rest then. Do nothing for the rest of the day." Alexander speaks in low, measured, guileless voice. A comforting sound that washes through him, he closes his eyes. "I need you to be well tonight, I fear I might need you tonight."

"T.. tonight?" He asks, opening his eyes again just a little. What is tonight? So lost is he in the aftermath of a night's terror that all memories and intelligent faculties have deserted him it seems.

"The feast. Tonight."

"The feast..." No idea, none crosses his mind, that gets empty by the second, by each soothing stroke of Alexander's fingers along his arm.

"I plan to give a satrapy to Kleitos, but he seems surrounded by a dark mood these days," Alexander says, who then presses a perfunctory kiss upon his brows. "I think you will need to help me talk some sense into him."

"K... Kleitos?"

"Yes, tonight." Another light kiss, on his brow, his nose, his mouth. The kiss lingers. It feels like finality. "Rest, I shall see you tonight." And just like the breeze, like air, it dissipates.

He stares as life carries Alexander away from him this day.

_Tonight_.

The sun is no longer warm. The chill grips his heart. 


End file.
